Suggestible - The Time Traveler's Sperm
Episode Date: June 2, 2022Suggestible things to watch, read and listen to. Hosted by James Clement @mrsundaymovies and Claire Tonti @clairetonti.This week’s Suggestibles:01:59 The Phantom Menace Marketing Invasion10:03 The T...ime Traveler's Wife (Series)20:11 Useless Magic by Florence Welch24:30 Shining Girls29:24 On Being with Krista Tippett - Mary Oliver37:43 Heartstopper41:03 Quiz and Hers Podcast44:42 Tonts with Pip Reid (Coming this Friday!)Send your recommendations to suggestiblepod@gmail.com, we’d love to hear them.You can also follow the show on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook @suggestiblepod and join our ‘Planet Broadcasting Great Mates OFFICIAL’ Facebook Group. So many things. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Bing bong, ba-da-ba-bing, bing bong, ba-da-bing-a-dee-bong, ba-da-ba-bing-bing-ba.
Enough of your nonsense.
Podcasting is the most serious of our films.
I don't like the way you make a mockery of it.
This is my art.
I'm not mockerying.
What are you doing?
You're holding a bottle of diet soft drink.
This is an audio medium.
Don't be doing any visual shenanigans.
This isn't for you.
This is for me because it's got sediment in the bottom
and I'm mixing it up.
All right.
Okay.
Anyway, let's get on with things.
Hello, Nothing But Professionalism.
This is a suggestible podcast.
A podcast where we recommend you things
to watch, read and listen to.
My name is Claire Chanty.
James Clement is here also.
What up, dog?
Oh, no, please.
What do you mean?
Please not.
My favourite thing to say to our son is, what up, dog?
It's your boy, Dad.
He is starting to really take on board your mannerisms.
I think he did one of those things where, you know,
when you feel like, my dad likes what's his breakfast or whatever,
and it's like, my dad always says, and he wrote, what up, dog?
It's your boy dad.
Yeah, he did.
And there's something else that was funny in that list.
There was something about like what does your dad always have in his pockets?
Headphones.
Headphones, that is true. Correct. Exactly. It's not funny.
It's accurate, Claire. Yeah, I know. But there was something else. Anyway, let's move along.
No one likes to hear about anyone else's children. Headphones because they're no longer a sponsor.
No. Correct. Of your choosing. That's true. Yeah. I just want to point that out. It was a hassle.
I know. You were like, Raycon, it's not you, it's me. It's me, it's not you.
Yeah, that's pretty much what I said.
And they were like, what about if we increased it?
And I said, what about if we increased it by like a lot?
And they were like, no.
And I'm like, well, then I'm not doing it.
Yeah.
They're fine.
They're good headphones.
They are.
But anyway.
Anyway.
Anyway, it was mainly that I just kept yelling at you.
Have you done it?
Have you done it, Scott?
Driving us all crazy.
Anyway, hello.
We're married, if you haven't guessed, and we are very excited to be reviewing things.
James, how do we begin?
How are you?
I'm fine.
Let's start.
How's your hair situation?
Shorter.
I know.
I really like it.
A video went out this week where my hair was longer in the video.
People said, maybe, maybe I drank an old Pepsi and I don't want to spoil that video.
It's on the Phantom Menace marketing campaign.
I cannot believe you did that.
On my hair, Claire.
A lot of positive word of mouth.
I'm waiting for you to suddenly grow like a weird gross out of my head.
Nah, man.
I'm not going to die.
Do you know why?
Why?
Because I'm going to die in a much stupider way.
All right.
Well, we're all going to die, James.
I mean, drinking an old can of Pepsi is pretty stupid, but I think I can do something even
stupider.
Yeah. Like, to be fair, respect Steve Evans, an incredible person.
He definitely died how he lived with a stingray straight to the heart.
I reckon I'm going to like be walking across a bridge and I'll fart
and I'll fall off.
Like it'll propel me slightly and I'll fall.
Yep, I could see that.
And then I'll have to tell people that I just fell, but you'll always know.
Yeah, of course.
That I did a big fart.
Your farts always sound a little bit like someone stepped on a duck as well and they're quite cheerful, like trumpety.
Ah!
Yeah.
Sonny's also doing his thing at the moment.
I don't know what to do about it.
He's farting and then like using his hands to propel the stench towards me
and he's doing it with this like funny little face.
And I just don't know if he's going to go to someone else's house
slash his teacher.
I think it's just kids, they just do a bunch of that shit.
I don't know.
And he's going to fart and like propel us at my teacher,
at his teacher or at a friend's house.
I always say to him like it's fine to do it here but don't be farting
at other people's houses at the dinner table and blowing it in their face.
Put on normal person manners when you go somewhere else,
which is what I do to be fair.
Yeah, that is true.
All right, shall we get started?
Nice dilly-dallying.
Would you like me to kick off this week?
Yes, kick it off.
Well, I've got two time travelling shows this week to recommend, Claire.
That is one of your other loves, isn't it?
I do love a good time travel tale.
Do you secretly want to time travel?
No, Claire, I've talked about this.
I don't want the responsibility or the ramifications of a time travel.
Even if you time travelled even slightly,
even if you just popped into whatever era,
all it would take was to like some kind of knock-on effect
where there would be a different sperm and then everything's out.
You throw one person out by a different sperm.
Are you saying like because a different sperm as in like you would have sex
with someone and that would be a different sperm? No like you would have sex with someone? No.
I'm saying you could shove somebody and it would probably mean that if they would have a child,
they would have a different sperm or they would knock somebody else who would then have this.
So what you're assuming is this biologically accurate that you've got sperm inside you that's just like rattling around
and if someone pushes you slightly, the sperm.
It's highly unlikely that Marty McF if someone pushes you slightly, the sperm. I thought it was.
It's highly unlikely that Marty McFly went back in time, right,
and still managed to be born, seeing as he fully interacted
with his parents, interrupted all sorts of erections
and rejections, Claire.
And as a result of that, he was still born.
Not still born.
He was still managed to be born.
Yes.
Impossible, Claire.
It's an impossible situation.
Did you just phrase ejections and erections?
You heard me.
Ejections and erections.
Unless, of course.
Rejections and erections.
There we go.
I've got it.
Third time lucky.
Unless, of course, and we don't know this concerning time travel,
unless everything has a predetermined path,
in which case that time travel was always supposed to happen.
I see.
But the idea of Back to the Future is that you're changing the past,
but then again maybe there are predetermined points of history
and people that are supposed to be born.
Anyways.
Oh, goodness.
I just don't think you understand sperm because I think it's not
what the position of the sperm is.
It's the quality of the sperm.
Yes, I know, but you'd have to get to have.
And being rattled around a bit is not going to affect that.
But each of us, every single person, even through IVF or whatever,
won some kind of sperm race.
This is what I'm saying.
But I'm saying that could easily be interrupted.
The sperm that wins, maybe it was just the best one on the day.
Maybe you just happened to be swimming in a certain direction
when things happened. No, it's the speed best one on the day. Maybe you just happened to be swimming in a certain direction when things happened.
No, it's the speed.
It's the quality.
It's the quality of each individual sperm.
Yeah, but one gets through.
And if you put through a different sperm, you'd get a different child.
Yeah, I know.
But what you're saying, okay, the premise of your,
I can't believe we're talking about this,
but the premise of your whole thing was that someone got pushed
by someone who had time travelled.
And because they were pushed slightly, the sperm in their balls
rattled around and therefore a different sperm wins the race.
Yes.
For the egg.
Yes.
At a certain point after they've been pushed, they then go
and have a shag.
Because every single, there's a knock-on effect for that.
Yes, but what I'm saying to you is I don't think a push
can change the sperm that wins.
You thought I would fart myself off a bridge.
So I don't think you know the power of a push.
I'm no expert.
I'm no doctor, but I will say I'm an expert.
I think it's about the quality of the sperm.
And that is a bit like saying like there's a group of runners.
If you push someone over slightly and then they start their race,
they're all still going to run and the person that wins
is going to just be the fastest.
It says here that in each millilitre of sperm there is approximately
100 million of them in there, right?
What?
So you're telling me that cannot be right.
That does not sound right. That's so much. 100 million sperms? right? What? So you're telling me that cannot be right. That does not sound right.
That's so much.
100 million sperms.
Yeah.
What?
That can't be right in one ejaculation.
A fertile male human ejaculates between two and five milliliters
of semen on average or on average a teaspoon.
In each milliliter there is normally about 100 million sperm.
If the concentration falls below 20 million sperm per millilitre,
so you have to win a race.
100 million sperm?
You have to beat 100 million other sperm.
Impossible, Claire.
Each of us shouldn't be here.
It doesn't make any sense.
That's insane.
I know.
That's insane.
But even if it was 10,000, even if it was 100, it would still be incredibly difficult. I know. That's insane. But even if it was 10,000, even if it was 100,
it would still be incredibly difficult.
I know.
So what you're saying is that 100 million,
that the push will affect it.
I don't think so.
I just think it will be like who's the fastest, sperm in there.
Exactly.
Who's the fastest?
But it all depends on also starting position.
They all got pushed at the same time.
No, no, but there's also starting.
They're not frozen exactly in the same spot.
They're swimming around in there.
I thought they were in a little starting line.
No, they're ducking and diving, Claire.
And there's no trial.
They're not lined up in order of speed.
Every now and then a bad sperm gets through as well.
You see a guy and you're like, this guy sucks.
It could be a bad sperm situation.
It's a Stephen Bradbury of sperms, who I love by the way.
But everyone else falls down and that sperm gets there.
100 million.
Yeah. The chance of us existing
is so minuscule. It's ridiculous.
Enjoy your bloody lives, guys.
It's a fucking fluke that you're here at all.
Yep. Stop getting miserable.
Nah, you're allowed to be miserable. Nobody chose
to be born. You can be miserable.
That's fine.
Man, 100 million, 100,000.
What is it?
100 million, apparently.
And that's only in one shot.
Apparently.
But again, even if that's way off, this is what Google says,
but even if it's like.
Wow.
Also, wear those condom-y things if you're, you know.
Oh, wait a minute.
It says here, animal, average number of sperm per ejaculate.
A man, it says 280, and then a pig, it says 80.
So is it much lower than a man?
What?
Is it possible that on this show we're not experts
and we're leading people very astray?
Yes.
I feel like we ventured far out of our knowledge territory.
For the nearly 5,000 sperm that make it to the utero-tubule junction.
I thought 5,000.
No, no, for the who make it.
A thousand of them reach the inside of the fallopian tube.
From there, a thousand sperm entering the tube,
only 200 actually reach the egg.
In the end, one lucky sperm out of 200 penetrates the egg.
Going back, how many initially in the-
I think it's still that millions of things that I said.
A hundred million.
Yeah.
That is like insane amount.
They must be so tiny.
Yes.
Well, they are.
Yes.
You know, gosh, you learn something new every day.
You certainly do.
Anyway, should I continue this thing that I was talking about?
Yeah, we should get back to the thing we were actually discussing.
Do you remember the book The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger?
I do.
I did read that and I also remember the film.
Yes.
With Bruce Banner.
With Bruce Banner.
What's his name?
Now you've thrown me off.
Eric Banner and Rachel McAdams.
Correct.
I just did a Portmanteau.
You did.
One of his famous characters and his name.
Correct.
So that was actually, that was a 2003 book.
It was adapted into a 2009 movie. I've seen bits and pieces of it. It's not great. I've a 2003 book. It was adapted into a 2009 movie.
I've seen bits and pieces of it.
It's not great.
I've seen the movie.
I've read the book.
It's pretty good.
I remember it being quite good.
Have you read the book?
Yes, I have.
I just said to you I had.
Okay, great.
The sperm didn't win in your race.
That's certainly true.
Just look at me.
Look at my brothers and look at me.
Anyway, I'm cunning.
I'm like a rat.
That's my skill.
You were born with webbed feet.
Jeez.
Actually, people, I did mention my feet the other day.
People were like, what's wrong with these feet?
Tell us about your feet.
I'll never tell.
Anyways, so the second adaptation, there's a second adaptation.
They're webbed.
They're basically like the feet in that movie Luca.
That's right. And you still are a bad swimmer. I'm a terrible swim Luca. That's right.
And you still are a bad swimmer.
I'm a terrible swimmer.
It's my short arms, Claire.
I'm not built for swimming.
I'm built for winning a sperm race.
Anyways, so there's a second.
She's broken.
I broke you.
Oh, you broke yourself.
I don't know.
Speram race.
Anyway.
I got my little boots on.
I'm getting ready to go.
I'm getting better.
Imagine if you're the second spam that misses.
You don't know, though.
There's no consciousness there.
They're all wiggling at the little egg and then suddenly one goes boop
and cracks it.
I know.
And that's it.
That's over.
Sometimes two, sometimes more.
That is true.
But, yeah, generally.
God, you wouldn't.
How?
You'd be devastated.
A hundred million.
You know you wouldn't be because you don't exist.
You're nothing.
I don't know.
You're not like a person driving a little spacecraft in there.
How do you know?
Well, that was the thing.
I think we both had this conversation.
We've got to get on with this.
We do.
We both had this conversation where I think we both had the idea
that the sperm is the person and the egg is like the house when we were kids.
Anyway, that was recently debunked for us, wasn't it?
Correct.
Massively.
No.
Oh, my gosh.
Anyways, so anyway, so this is the second adaptation
of The Time Traveller's Wife.
It's a series which has been adapted by Stephen Moffat.
Yes. So it stars Rose Leslie
who you might know as You Know Nothing John Snow
and Theo James. You Know Nothing
John Snow. Exactly. And Theo James,
a guy who you'd recognise. Marry me
in real life. Okay. I will.
I'll do it. So for those
people who don't know, Henry, as played by Theo
James, is an ordinary man with an extraordinary
gift, a gene that allows him to time travel involuntarily. Claire, as played by Rose Leslie,
his wife, finds it difficult to cope with his ability. So it's this love story over time,
over decades, but also out of order. So if he gets stressed or even just kind of excited or
even on a whim, he can suddenly disappear and reappear in either in the
future or the past, completely naked and just somewhere. He's often drawn to certain events
or certain people, but it's kind of, it is kind of a love story, but it's also kind of this sinister,
ominous story because they're kind of, these two people are kind of locked in time together. So
he goes back multiple times and visits her as a kid,
which is weird because he knows that they're going to get married and he's watching this girl grow up.
But also different versions of him are coming from different points in time.
Sometimes he'll be like early 30s, sometimes he'll be like 50 or whatever,
you know, so he's visiting out of all – yeah, it's very odd.
And, look, they handle it the same with the book where, like,
they don't get together when she's a child.
But it is this – you know, it's very – it it's kind of it's very dark and strange in parts and also it's so it
is this sense of like because in in this in this world it's all everything's locked so there's no
you can't change anything so he has tragic events in his life or as everybody does that that cannot
like he can witness them again and again, but he can't interact.
If he interacts, it will just really, if anything,
it will make that thing happen also.
So it's also, I was surprised by this.
I actually looked up the Rotten Tomato reviews before this
and it's getting like absolutely savage.
Like it's not getting great reviews.
But look, I would say it's like it's pretty solid
and it's much better than the movie adaptation
of which I've seen a bit of. But yeah, as I mentioned, it's pretty dark and it's a better than the movie adaptation of which i've seen a bit of but
yeah as i mentioned it's kind of it's pretty dark and it's a little bit whimsical but it's
interesting and i think it also kind of uh i don't know this kind of the the structure of it i find
really interesting and there can also be different versions of him exist can exist at the same time
so he can interact with himself from like different eras.
So we can either be, can like pass on information to himself or to others around him. He can leave
messages and things like that. So he, I find that really fascinating. And also he kind of hates
himself. So whenever he runs into himself, he's just like, fuck. Okay. Look, okay. So you need
to know. Okay. So this thing's going to happen or whatever. So he doesn't like himself.
Like he doesn't like running into himself.
Wow.
It sounds like a mixture of About Time and also that show,
what's it called where he writes stuff on his arm all the time?
Memento?
Memento.
Yeah.
Sort of sounds like a combo of that.
Memento is who's in it?
It's Guy Pearce and Carrie Ann Moss.
That's right.
And Guy Pearce's character kind of wakes up every day with a clean memory.
No, he has a 15-minute memory.
So he has no – all his long-term memories before his accident are intact,
but everything since that point, it's literally like every 15 minutes
he resets, which is why he's tattooed himself.
With so much information.
Yeah, to find his wife's killer.
Yeah, that's right.
So that's like very dark.
Christopher Nolan movie, that one.
Oh, interesting.
I actually think this sounds really cool.
I think you might like it.
Look, and it's only been three and it's on Binge in Australia,
which is horrible.
It's also on HBO Max.
It's an HBO Max show.
Okay.
So I think people will, depending how it goes,
I think people will warm to it over time because I've seen people kind
of respond positively to certain aspects of it on Twitter as well.
And, yeah, I just think, look, it's not, you know, you're not like,
oh, my God, this has blown my mind or whatever.
It's just like this is pretty good.
Here's a question.
I know put aside the sperm thing of like pushing people over and, I don't know,
whatever the thing that you went into before about worrying about stuff,
if you could just, if you had to, if you, I don't know,
suddenly went back in time.
Yeah.
What would you tell yourself when you're,
say you went back in time when you were 18,
like you ran into your 18-year-old self.
I mean.
What would you say?
I don't know.
Cool hair, dude.
Cool hair.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
What are you saying?
I've still got very rich and dark hair, Claire, as you're well aware.
It's wonderful.
I love your hair.
No, I do.
I'm sorry.
No, but I don't know.
I think I'd like to maybe sit down and maybe have a drink and just maybe –
if you could say anything and not affect anything.
Yeah, that's what I mean.
I think having like an actual conversation would be really interesting
about things that you care about and things that might be –
if you could just say anything and it didn't matter, yeah, just say it.
And it wouldn't change the future.
No, just go ham.
Just say whatever.
Do some shots.
What about you?
Yeah, I agree.
I think sitting down and having a conversation,
it might be quite mortifying in some ways but fascinating.
Do you think you'd be happy with meeting yourself?
God, it would depend on the self that I met. I think there's parts of my early 20s where I would
be, and my teenage years where I would be incredibly mortified to meet myself. But then
again, do you know what? Over time, and maybe it's turning 36, I don't know, something's really
happened in my mind that shifted my opinion of myself as a teenager. I think there was a time
in my twenties where I looked at my teenage years as something that I'd overcome. And now I'm this
like person that's kind of blossomed into herself and how embarrassing, what a gawky, awkward,
you know, teenager. But now I think to myself, I would love to go back and meet that teenager
because I actually don't really know anymore what she really was like. Because at that time,
you're so colored by yourself compared to everyone else and your awkwardness. And I look at teenagers
now and just think, oh, sweethearts, you're trying. And some of them are like incredibly
articulate and put together. And a lot are still kind of like looking like baby horses, you know,
their limbs are all a bit long and they're all trying to discover
who they are and experiment with different selves.
And I don't know, I would just like to go back in time
and maybe give that teenage girl a big hug and just say you're wonderful
and, you know, it's going to be okay and, you know, don't try not to sweat this little stuff.
Do you believe yourself?
Oh, no.
God, no.
No way.
But, yeah, there's a lot of love I have for that girl now.
I mean I might be mortified but I think I would just be more kind of like good
on you for being the oddball that you are, you know.
Yeah.
I think all that stuff is really important to go through weird and awkward stuff. for being the oddball that you are, you know. Yeah.
All that stuff is really important to go through weird and awkward stuff.
And as mentioned, we've said this before, like you don't want to peak in high school.
No, and it's all part of it, right, at the end of the day.
You're just trying.
And even like the coolest person that you know in high school,
that person's a big fucking loser now.
No matter who they are, everyone's a big loser.
Every adult, we're all losers, Claire.
We're all big nerds.
No, that's not what it is.
Do you know what it is?
At the end of the day, everyone's doing their own thing.
And I think there's some idea that as teenagers it's a big race
and, you know, there's this popularity contest.
Whereas as an adult, the best thing about it is that you can get
to choose who you hang out with.
I mean maybe not, you know.
What does being the coolest person in your school mean of like, you know,
however many people, 300 people, 600 people?
Yeah.
Gives a shit.
No.
God.
Anyway, I was the coolest person at my school, so yeah.
No.
No, I was.
Anybody who knew me.
No one remembers you from my school.
Anybody who knows me then would attest to that.
Don't ask, but they know.
All right.
What's your next recommendation?
All right, okay, we're running like a very long time.
Anyway, I have two recommendations.
One I'll talk about first.
It's called Useless Magic by Florence Welch.
So you know how I raved about Florence and the Machine
a couple of episodes ago?
That's all you've been doing to me.
I know.
You've been showing me.
I love her album dance fever.
Look at this video from Florence and the Machine.
Oh, she's so witchy.
She's so good. Bill Maher plays her anxiety and I just love, I've listened to that, that song free. Just like, I can't even tell you how many times. Oh, she's sitting in a bean bag playing a piano. All right. Okay. And there's a withered tree behind her. Can I do my recommendation? It's 20 minutes in. Good God. God, I wish a different sperm won the race. No, I don't. I love you just as you are.
What the hell, man? Anyway, let's move along.
Useless Magic, it is a book that I ordered from Booktopia
and it's written by Florence and it's a collection really of,
it's kind of like her artist's notebook in a way really.
So it goes really deep into a lot of her poetry that doesn't make it
into her songs as well as like the lyrics of her, you know, famous albums like Lungs it starts with.
But it's also got Polaroids and photos and drawings.
Look at this photograph.
Can I just get through a recording?
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
So it has her artwork as well and scribbled notes.
And I'm so fascinated by where songs come from and books as well.
Like I love the fact that Roald Dahl carried a notebook everywhere
and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory started,
he had to pull over on the side of the road while he was driving
and just wrote something like a boy that grows up in a chocolate factory.
Yeah.
And that became this incredibly worldwide, you know,
famous well-known story.
But it started with him driving, having this spark of an idea and so this is what
this book is it's just like scraps of her thoughts and feelings and drawings and tattoos that she's
got and polaroids and um she's really into vintage dresses that's a kind of a mixture of a lot of
things and it just i know this is going to sound really i don't know naff i don't care whatever
her brain works the way my brain does and I'm not saying
that I'm flops welch on any level.
It sounds the same.
But I just mean that there is something really comforting
and I find this with a lot of different people who are creatives.
There's something comforting about seeing the creative process like that
and realising that it's not a straight line, that like people mix
and match a whole lot of things and experiment with things
and fail at things and bring in imagery and try different styles
and, you know, make mistakes because it's like a very imperfect book
in that it's not, you know, like a this is how I wrote my songs
and very formal and it jumps all over the place.
Anyway, I just find it like a very comforting book to have around,
which I know sounds strange but, yeah.
I think that's cool.
And I guess that's what people see in her music in Florence and the Machine, right?
They kind of, there's songs in that catalogue of music
that change people's lives, I think.
Yes.
And so much of it is about music but also about liberation
from yourself and your demons.
And she's just got this really incredible knack of, you know,
writing songs that are incredibly personal to her
but ultimately universal.
Anyway, I'll start raving about her but, yeah,
the book's called Useless Magic.
Terrific.
That sounds good.
I won't listen or read any of that.
No, you will not.
I want to say one more thing about it. The title Useless Magic comes from because she felt like
her songwriting was kind of like this magical thing that she could do that would sometimes
almost predict things that would happen. So she'd write a song and then later on something would
happen that had kind of already she'd sung about in the song or it would help her
or other people in a situation later on.
And she said it's kind of a useless magic because it doesn't
change anything.
It just is kind of interesting and maybe it's that she's picking
up themes or concepts that are kind of in the ether.
But she knew Bill Nighy would follow her around.
Is that true?
No.
For instance, her video clip for free is set in the Ukraine
before the invasion of Russia.
Oh, yeah.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
And it's written in this beautiful way and then dedicated
to the artists of Ukraine.
And, you know, that must have or had to have been created
before they invaded.
So it's kind of, you know.
Anyway.
Right.
Hi, this is Katnett Unfiltered. So it's kind of, you know, anyway. You could even Airbnb your whole house while you are away. You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it.
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your home might be worth more than you think.
Find out how much at Airbnb.ca slash host.
What's your second one?
Well, my second thing is actually, again, it's time travel related.
It's called The Shining Girls.
It's based on a novel by Lauren Bukes.
It stars Elizabeth Moss, Wagner Mora, and Jamie Bell.
So newspaper archivist Kirby Masracki's dream,
that's Elizabeth Moss' character, of becoming a journalist
to put on hold after she survives a brutal attack
that leaves her in a constantly shifting reality.
So what this show is about, Claire, you're going to believe this.
You're not going to believe this.
Get ready for this.
It's about a time-travelling serial killer, okay?
So this serial killer, as played by Jamie Bell,
over a span of like 80.
That's actually very terrifying.
I find that very chilling.
It's a very chilling show.
You're very perceptive.
Very terrifying.
I find that very chilling.
It's a very chilling show.
You're very perceptive.
So as played by Jamie Bell, who people might know as Billy Elliot,
they might know him from the movie Jumper.
He's the mate of Jumper in the movie Jumper. They might know him from Fantastic Four 2015 where he played
Benjamin Grimm's The Thing.
But the thing is because he can be anywhere at any time over like
an 80-year period and then he could kill anywhere at any time,
all the evidence about what he's doing and how these people are connected,
it's scattered over decades.
So he might kill somebody in, say, the 80s,
but the evidence for that is left in the 50s or vice versa.
Does that make sense?
So interesting.
So like you're trying to put together this puzzle,
but logically it doesn't
make sense and you can't explain it to anybody because it sounds insane, right?
Yeah.
So it's a time-travelling man who never ages,
just kind of wreaking havoc over this city.
That's awful.
Yeah.
I don't want that to happen in real life.
I don't want it either.
I think we should actually put a change.org petition together
to make sure this
doesn't happen, to let our voices be heard. So Elizabeth Moss's character, because she's the
only one of these shining girls to survive the attack, which he is initially unaware of,
for some reason she is linked to him. So whenever he does anything like significant in his, like throughout his life, it then
slightly alters her reality.
And it might be like a haircut.
It might be like she's at a different desk at work.
It might be her relationship with somebody, which she didn't have.
Suddenly that person has always been in her life, but she doesn't have any memories of
that.
She just only sees the changes.
Whereas everybody else kind of lives their life as if nothing had happened.
Does that make sense?
Yes.
So there's a moment where she's living with her mother.
That's how it opens.
But it hasn't always been that way and she explains that like,
and this isn't a spoiler at all, that they hadn't had a relationship
for years and then all of a sudden one day she gets home
and she's just there, like she's always been there.
And she has all these, her mother has all these memories
of them together and living together but she doesn't have any of those reference points so it's also kind of like
am i insane which is what she's initially thinking because she doesn't know what's
happening but the one constant thing is that the thing that happened to her is true and people are
aware whoever she tells people are aware of that uh and she's just basically trying to, with help of others, find this guy somehow and determine, like,
how he's managing to do this.
Now, there's one episode left at the time of recording this,
but so far I'm really enjoying it.
I'm hoping they wrap it up at the end of this season.
I don't really feel like this should be a thing that goes on,
but I love the setting.
Like, it's set, I think, in the 80s or maybe early 90s,
like the main portion of it, but it kind of jumps all over the place.
It's on Apple Plus for those people.
All right.
You actually started to watch it and you're like,
I don't want to watch this.
I don't know if you remember.
What was it called again?
It's called The Shining Girls.
I think we started to watch it and then you were like, no, no thank you.
Yeah, I couldn't handle it in the moment.
I might be better now.
I was going through, I had the flu and gastro and all kinds of things
and I just was not in a good head space.
I couldn't watch something so it was scary.
Now that you've won the sperm race, you know definitively
that you're feeling good, you're a winner.
No, James, you win the sperm race at conception.
You can't win it as a grown human.
You still won it.
I'm still riding off the glory of winning my sperm race.
Yeah, it was the only thing you bloody did right.
I'm like the guy who scored a big touchdown in high school
and I'm like, fuck yeah, I'm the best.
Remember that?
That is such a patriarchal thing actually to think that the sperm
is the person and the egg is the house.
I know.
That is such bullshit because that is basically saying
that the sperm is responsible for the brain.
Yeah, the sperm's the person.
It's so fucked up.
And the woman is the house.
It's making me more and more angry.
I've been listening to you but also a part of my brain
has just been getting more and more angry about that concept.
You thought it though.
Yeah, I know, but you know.
But who put it in your head?
Exactly.
A man.
Exactly.
A man did it.
Yeah, because, yes, I was going to make a joke then
about the man being the brain. No, I'm not even going to make funnies about it. Yeah, because, yes, I was going to make a joke then about the man being the brain.
No, I'm not even going to make funnies about it.
Oh, yeah, let's not joke.
Let's not joke.
It's not a joke.
It's a serious show.
All right.
Okay.
I am so excited about my second recommendation.
Oh, I thought that was the end of the show.
I'm ready to leave.
Oh, definitely not.
No, no, no.
I'm ready to leave.
No, no, no.
Have you got a time travel thing?
No.
This is a weird book about a crooked tree or something.
Actually, no.
It's so annoying.
Just because you don't like certain things.
Actually, it's interesting.
It kind of is about time travel because it's an old episode of a podcast
that was re-released and it was recorded in like 2015 or something.
It's a bit of a strange quote to say that that is time travel.
Well, you're listening to someone who's dead.
The person in the podcast is dead now.
Anyway, I want to talk about it. It's so wonderful. There's a podcast called On Being
with Krista Tippett. And if you're a podcast aficionado, you probably already know about
Krista Tippett. She was born in 1960 and is an American journalist, author, and entrepreneur.
She created and hosts the public radio program and podcast On Being, as I said. Yes, yes. And in 2014, Tippett was awarded the National Humanities Medal
by US President Barack Obama.
I'm familiar with him.
Yeah, for all of her work.
So she was a political assistant to the senior United States
diplomat in West Berlin, John C. Cord Bloom,
and the next year she became chief aide in Berlin
to the US ambassador to West Germany, Richard Burt.
She has written that moral questions arising from that experience of seeing high power
up close, this is in 1986, eventually led to the spiritual, philosophical, and theological
curiosities that have defined her work since.
She's read some really sort of pivotal books called Speaking of Faith, Why Religion Matters
and How to Talk About It, Einstein's God, Conversations About Science and the Human Spirit,
and Becoming Wise, An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living.
So she's just, you know, an incredibly amazing person
and really obviously articulate and wonderful and deep thinking.
And she has released an episode with a wonderful poet,
one of my faves, Mary Oliver.
She wrote things like Wild geese, you know,
that phrase, my one wild and precious life.
Yes, yes, yes.
All of those things.
And Mary Oliver has since passed away.
And I listened to this episode and it was so fascinating.
Just A, to hear her voice because I've read so much of her poetry
and to actually hear her speaking was so interesting and she led a really difficult life.
So I won't spoil the whole podcast but Mary Oliver grew up
and she doesn't go into specifics but in a really traumatic childhood,
so home was somewhere that was awful and not safe.
And so she spent a huge amount of time outside alone really as a child
and that was her kind of refuge.
So as an adult she found being in enclosed spaces incredibly difficult.
Right, yeah.
So that's why she lived basically in poverty in a small town
and wrote poetry first alone and then with her partner
and she wandered the woods around her town and wrote poems basically for 50 years.
And listening to her depth of understanding and spirituality and connection to things
and because of the history of what she went through as a child,
you can see why her poetry resonates all over the world
and what a deeply wise person she is and was.
And yeah, it's so interesting.
Like she's just listening to someone who's written poetry their entire life and lectured
in poetry, even some of her most famous poetry.
One of them was an exercise that she did with her students in the lecture that turned out
to be one of her most famous ones. Oh, right. Yeah. So it's, it's such an interesting conversation and Krista Tippett does
an incredible job interviewing her. It's just so moving and beautiful and a masterclass in how to
interview someone like that. So that's what you, I think as somebody who is an excellent interviewer,
me. Thank you. No, you. Well, I'm trying.
I'm learning.
It's something you can appreciate.
Yeah, I'm really learning.
And I love listening to interviews for that reason
because it's something, it's an art form and I'm still learning how to do it.
But it's one of the things that I love the most.
And I'd realised, just as an aside, that most of my life
where you were watching Star Wars, I was watching Parkinson's
and, you know, what else did I watch?
Enough Rope with Andrew Denton, you know, all of those.
And I still do it now.
A lot of my algorithms are geared towards like Graham Norton
and interview shows.
So it's quite interesting really.
Graham Norton's like, ooh, didn't something strange happen to you
on the set of something?
And they're like, well, actually it did.
He's like, ooh.
Ooh, ooh, ooh.
Yeah, correct.
Exactly.
So, you know, I am Oprah.
I spend a lot of years watching Oprah interview after interview
after interview.
Are you a big Dr. Oz fan?
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
So into it.
Are you still a big Dr. Oz fan?
No, not at all.
Jesus.
And also I was a really big Dr. Phil fan.
Terrible. Fuck him. No good. No good at all. Jesus. And also I was a really big Dr. Phil fan. Terrible.
Fuck him.
No good.
No good at all.
That'll pull yourself up by your bootstrap.
He does more harm than good.
He's a terrible person.
I know, but I've watched so much of his stuff as well.
And I, anyway, I just spend a lot of my life watching interviews.
So I really love a good interview and I really respect a good interview,
especially when it's in a conversation.
I just like often for my job sometimes I will go back to listen
to other podcasts of the people I'm interviewing
and I just cannot listen to interviews that are so prescriptive
and where the person is just like I've got my set questions
and it doesn't really matter what the other person says,
I'm going to read these questions.
And I respect that like in an interview setting, like for instance,
at 7.30, Lee Sales is an Australian journalist here
and she's only got three minutes.
And she is an incredible interviewer and she has her questions to ask,
but that's because she has three minutes sometimes
with a political leader or a really important person.
But in a podcast format, like I listened to one the other day that was so,
it was like she didn't want to be there or something.
Yeah, those are so hard to list.
I think there are examples of that done really well.
Have you ever seen Hot Ones?
No.
Where it's eating hot wings and asking hot questions.
Oh, yes, yes.
They're eating really spicy wings and then they've got.
Yeah, that's clever.
For every wing there's a question.
And I also, one of the
things I don't like about is that like, they don't run with a thing because it's got that format
where they'll move on. But the questions are so good and it's kind of designed in that short,
sharp like segment. So the, because the re and he's good interview as well, but the research is
so thorough that it is interesting. So you might actually enjoy that.
I think I would.
Do you know what the other one I do enjoy?
Vogue has a video series which are done in a single shot with, like,
you know, Nicole Kidman and Sarah Jessica Parker,
like just basically incredibly famous women.
Just talking over each other.
And people, not just women.
No, they're called 73 Questions and they have literally 73 questions
and they will go.
It's usually at someone's home and they'll, you know,
for instance Sarah Jessica Parker is one and is in her brownstone
in New York City and she opens the door and it's obviously scripted
and she's scripted as well.
But it's done in such a way that it's so beautiful and engaging
and it's almost choreographed because it's done in one shot.
Yeah.
They go through her apartment.
They go through the whole, yeah, I've seen those.
A few different people do stuff like that.
There's like a, I don't think it's one shot,
but there's like a gym and workout one where they'll be like,
hey, Arnold Schwarzenegger, what's your gym or whatever?
Oh, God, we have such different algorithms.
No, I get those ones as well, like go through the house and be like,
this is my ceramic whatever, whatever, you know.
No, but I just, they're so good and be like, this is my ceramic whatever, whatever, you know. No, but they're so good.
They're not this is my ceramic whatever.
It's like what's your favourite colour?
What's your favourite record?
Why do you love living in New York?
What is the best thing?
Do they dub over the voice of the questions?
Because some interviews do that and they re-dub the questions
in like the same voice and they're really like, it's really annoying.
They feel like really fake and takedown.
Oh, no, no, no.
This doesn't feel like that.
I don't think so anyway.
They're usually with actors because those people are obviously really skilled.
Anyway, they're beautiful and I love them.
So they're sort of interviews but not really.
Anyway, yes, the art of the interview, amazing.
Art of the interview.
All right, that's it.
So that one.
Do you have a question?
Wait, one thing I was just going to just drum home.
That was On Being with Mary Oliver.
On Being.
Can I also drum home to you whether people can actually write a letter
to this show, specifically an email.
And while you're bringing that up.
I've got it.
You already have.
Wow.
What's the email address?
Oh, suggestapod.gmail.com.
Terrific.
And you can write in just like Jess D has.
Hello.
Hello.
Emailing in with a very strong recommendation on Heartstopper,
a show on Netflix based on Alice Osmond's graphic novels of the same name.
Now, you already talked about this.
I was all over it.
You were.
It's a British coming-of-age show.
I loved it.
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
I watched it recently after you watched it, and I sobbed my little heart out.
Just cried and cried and cried.
It was so gorgeous.
It's about two young guys from different groups at school that become close
after being sat next to each other in homeroom.
It follows them as their relationships with friends, family,
and themselves and each other change and grow and is generally
just a very nourishing time.
It doesn't shy away from hard topics but doesn't dwell on the me that.
It's flawlessly cast, I totally agree.
Has a good soundtrack and is full of queer joy.
Hope you have a fabulous week, Jess.
Thank you, Jess.
Yeah, no, I loved it.
I thought it was terrific.
It's also they are doing more seasons.
Oh, yay. Which I'm kind of like, oh, I don't know because I loved it so much. But look, sure, I'll it. I thought it was terrific. Terrific. It's also they are doing more seasons.
Oh, yay. Which I'm kind of like, oh, I don't know because I loved it so much.
But look, sure, I'll see more of this.
This is tricky though, isn't it?
Because when they've resolved the like arc of the love story,
sometimes it doesn't work after that.
Yeah.
You know, they've, you know.
I hope it doesn't get into like petty misunderstandings.
I know, I hate that.
That's one thing the first season didn't do like at all.
They just liked each other and there was like misunderstandings
but it was never like you said this and whatever.
It wasn't.
No, it was more like and look, I'm not queer so I can't speak
for that experience but it did make me think about what it must be
like as a teenager to be questioning your sexuality in that way
and then liking someone and that person not being sure yet whether they are queer
and that kind of whole back and forth.
And I think they did a beautiful job of showing that
in a really compassionate way that he wasn't trying to be a jerk.
He was just unsure of himself in that situation
and trying to figure it out and trying really hard
not to hurt the other person.
Yeah, exactly.
And kind of doing it anyway unintentionally and then apologising for it.
Yeah, they were just both really lovely cast characters.
I agree.
Gorgeous.
Loved it.
Loved it.
Did you love it nearly as much as the TV show Obi-Wan?
Do you want my reaction?
We could do this another week. Why don't we do one more episode of Obi-Wan. Do you want my reaction? We could do this another week.
Why don't we do one more episode of Obi-Wan?
All right.
You want me to give it one more go?
Okay, one more episode and then we'll talk about it.
I'm not going to say whether I loved or hated it.
Do you know what I love?
People who leave reviews for the show.
You love me?
Yeah, yeah, but even more so people who leave reviews for the show
like Hayley Kay has done.
Five stars.
And she's just done it in-app.
It's so easy.
Why did you say it Hayley like that?
Hayley, did I?
You just kind of like.
It's H-A-L-L-I-E.
Is that Hayley or is that Hallie?
Or Hallie.
H-A-L-L-I-E.
H-A-L-L-I-E.
I think it's Hallie.
Hallie.
Hallie.
Like Hallie Berry.
Like Hallie Copter. If we've said it wrong, Hallie, I'm so sorry. think it's Hallie. Hallie. Hallie. Like Hallie Berry. Like Hallie Copter.
If we've said it wrong, Hallie, I'm so sorry.
Go straight to Hallie.
All right, mate.
Just get on with the review.
Okay.
Hallie says, you inspire us.
Wow.
Whoa.
That's me saying wow.
I've been meaning to write this review for a long time.
My husband and I have been listening to both of your podcasts for years.
Just make the thing originally inspired us to create our own podcast, Quiz and Hers. Oh, cool. Over three
years ago. Excuse the shameless plug. Speaking of shameless plugs, that podcast, you can actually
find it on multiple platforms, but the trivia podcast where we test each other's knowledge
and strength of our relationship. Oh, cool. To be fair, I haven't listened to it. Maybe it's
just them fighting the entire time. Well, you know. That sounds delightful.
That would be an accurate representation of an inspired podcast from this show.
It's true.
After starting our own husband-wife podcast,
I was excited to hear that James and Claire would be starting their own.
In many ways, they set the trend.
Actually, correct.
You're right.
I take that back.
Love listening to the banter, which reminds me of us,
and also love the suggestibles.
Thanks for inspiring other podcasters and other couples in general.
Wow.
It is true that we are an inspiration, even though you did this before us.
Wow.
You know, we are.
We are.
We are inspirations.
Transetters.
Out of the curve.
Transetters.
Exactly.
We're the winning sperms.
Often people, yes, we are.
We need everybody to know that.
Also, the egg wins the race too.
That's true, but the egg is less likely to change, isn't it?
Because there's less eggs.
Okay, I'm not going to get this accurate,
but from my understanding a couple of eggs,
like one egg gets released from the fallopian tube.
But is there an order to the eggs?
From the follicles.
What's the order?
Are they lined up like a pinball machine?
Because I don't think it is, right?
No, no, no.
They're scrambled in there.
Yeah, they are.
Correct.
Yeah, and then one gets released.
Yeah.
Sometimes two, but usually one kind of moves down the tube.
Yeah, I think if you shove somebody,
that would definitely make a difference too.
They'd like jostle.
What are you saying?
But I feel like they're suspended in liquid.
Yeah, they are, which is they're more jostling than anything.
They're not sitting dry on a rack.
Yeah, but the way that you move around, like if you're, I just don't know.
I don't know whether being pushed would move the order around.
100% it would.
All right, I'm not sure.
But does that mean while you're walking around your organs move
if you get pushed over?
I feel like that's not true.
Organs?
No, your organs are like locked into your body.
They're all like.
Actually, I did learn recently that your uterus and, well, not yours,
you don't have one.
Sucks to be you.
I've got a uterus.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
What about other people who don't have uteruses also, Claire?
That was very insulting, specifically to me but also others.
I know.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Anyway, my uterus, apparently, not just mine but all uteruses,
are very soft and malleable.
Like so like all of those lady parts.
Like a soft boiled egg.
And your fallopian tubes as well can move around.
So they're not kind of stationary and locked in place.
Yeah, but it's not going to end up by your neck though, is it?
No, but you're also like your vaginal canal and all that stuff moves.
Yeah.
Like the angle of it can move and change.
Like it shifts about.
Yeah, so it's not like a solid pipe.
Like a hose.
Like a hose that's let loose and it's just like one of those wavy arm guys.
Yeah, I guess so.
Anyway, I just found that really interesting.
Didn't know that.
There you go.
I wouldn't know anything about that.
I've never seen one. I don't want to know anything about it. Gross. I nearly found that really interesting. Didn't know that. There you go. I wouldn't know anything about that. I've never seen one.
I don't want to know anything about it.
Gross.
I nearly called you Mason then.
Mason, let's wrap up the show.
That's an awkward time to call me Mason.
Good Lord.
He doesn't have a womb either.
All right.
That's it.
Is that the end of the show?
Thank you as always to Raul Collings for editing this week's episode.
He's done it again.
Thank you to Maisie for creating our socials at SuggestiblePod.
She's done it again. And also, yes, that's episode. She's done it again. Thank you to Maisie for creating our socials at SuggestiblePod. She's done it again.
And also, yes, that's it.
And TonsPod is also a social for TonsPod, which is excellent.
Oh, and just as an aside, I have a really cool episode of Tons
out this week with potentially the person that I've met
who is the most like me in the world.
Is it me?
No.
No, I mean, obviously we're very different people,
but we've also got a lot of similarities.
So I interviewed a very old friend of your brother's actually.
That's true, the brother that actually Mason does love.
Correct, exactly, called Pip Reid.
And she is a music therapist and works with very special kids
and kinder programs and is now running her own business
and is just this like massive joy bomb of a human being
and it's a really special episode.
She works particularly with families.
In the past she's worked with kids at the end of their life,
so in palliative care and in cancer wards,
which sounds like it would be very depressing.
But the way she talks about it is so, I know that we've just used
the word inspiring, but I think it really is.
And I just think it's possibly up there with one of my favourite episodes.
Pip's amazing.
She really is, right?
Yeah.
She's so amazing.
I knew Pip back when I was in school.
Like I think we, yeah, no, we knew each other, yeah.
Wow.
We've known each other since we were kids, like little kids.
Oh, yeah, that's so cool.
But I would say that you're probably better friends with her than I am.
Oh, look, we haven't seen each other in like 10 years or something,
but we just follow each other online and, yeah, it's just she's so lovely.
I mean it's a very, very happy, laughy, excited, enthusiastic episode.
Terrific.
But it's just a joy.
So anyway, so that comes out on Friday.
If anyone would like to listen, that's Tom's Pod.
I think people will.
I think people will. I think people will.
All right.
Thanks, everybody.
All right.
Bye.
Bye.
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